3rd Rd. Classics: Pawn Hearts v. Mirage

Nogbad_The_Bad wrote: Mirage is a nice enough album but Pawn is 10 kinds of awesome, bring me more Hamill!

Van Damme Generator!!!

Mirage - Gud album that i enjoy
Pawn Hearts - All-time favourite

All is forgiven. Thank you people.

zravkapt wrote: All is forgiven. Thank you people.

I thought you left

micky wrote: yeah... if the fame of Pawn Hearts rests on its epic..as it does  flawed as it is  IMO.. Mirage's fame should rest on the shoulders of its epic and that smokes and lays waste to VDGG's.. first off.. it is isn't deraied by over-intellectual bullsh*t.. nor by the need to be too clever by half.  It is what it is .. a good hard prog kick ass epic.  I've often said.. the first half of PoLHK was pure gold.. among the best things I've ever heard in prog..

Saperlipopette! wrote: micky wrote: yeah... if the fame of Pawn Hearts rests on its epic..as it does  flawed as it is  IMO.. Mirage's fame should rest on the shoulders of its epic and that smokes and lays waste to VDGG's.. first off.. it is isn't deraied by over-intellectual bullsh*t.. nor by the need to be too clever by half.  It is what it is .. a good hard prog kick ass epic.  I've often said.. the first half of PoLHK was pure gold.. among the best things I've ever heard in prog..  I pretty much agree but love both and find young Peter Hammill's pretentious but honest existentialism charming and and genuinely moving (a couple of years later his writing matured considerably and by 74-75 became one of progs greatest lyricists imo).  micky wrote: but the 2nd half? Chirst almight.. damn near ranks among the WORST.  Interesting for sure.. but would never be loony enough to rate it is anything approaching great. This part I don't get. I'm no looney but the progression in this epic is perfection to my ears. An amazing trip from start to finish and it all makes sense. The most spot on thing Julian Cope has ever written: ...“A Plague of Lighthouse keepers” drifts in and out of control for 23-minutes of standing-on-the-verge-of-getting-it-on-ness, occasionally unleashing ridiculous stentorian extremes, then backing right off into passages of near meditational drift. It should also be noted that this lot use Mellotrons 400 and Mark 2 like they SHOULD be used. Sound FX, train choogles, stampeding elephants, bain’t nowt too gimmicky for our boys. If it was guaranteed to invoke the ancient Gods, then they’d even steep the ARP synthesizer in tea.  PAWN HEARTS is a masterpiece in the old-fashioned sense of the word, that is: it is a musical blueprint on which to build in the future and has as sensibly structured an anti-structure as you could wish for. It is in turns beautiful, ridiculous, foul, overwhelming, irritating, mutating and magnificent... While ca. half the review is as irritating as he usually is.

I always did mean to review that album to make my thoughts and feelings on it more clear.

Needless to say I do share John McFerrins thoughts on it. Scary stuff...  never met the guy.. but almost scary how much I agree with many of his observations. Like ... here is someone who is expressing exactly what I feel.. makes reviewing actually more difficult. Much like my wife.  Think very much the same about a great many things musicially. People like him.. and Raff are so much better with words..I'd be afraid of aping their review to do mine.

so here is what he said.. pretty much sums up how I feel about the epic and the album

http://www.johnmcferrinmusicreviews.org/vdgg.htm#pawnhearts

GKR wrote: "Peter Hammill's pretentious but honest existentialism" - really really existencialism? Like, with influences of Sartre and stuff?

GKR wrote: "Peter Hammill's pretentious but honest existentialism" - really really existencialism? Like, with influences of Sartre and stuff?

^Sure. Didn't intend to come across as rude or anything. Just meant mankind have asked existential questions long before and after the ism.